Turn the Tables Over and Get Out the Whips
I tried hard to play as many different songs as I could on my radio show. In fact, I kept records of which songs I played when so I could avoid playing stuff too often.
But I made some exceptions.
Sage’s “Den of Thieves” was one of those exceptions. It was on a Tooth and Nail sampler, and it is the only song I have ever heard by this band.
But it seemed to capture, more so than any other song, the righteous anger I felt when I was faced with how Christianity was marketed.
In my most Evangelical days, I never ever thought it was great that there were so many Christian trinkets for sale about everything, and I certainly never bought into the idea that Testamints were a form of ministry.
I even worked at a Christian Bookstore for four years under someone who believed it was a ministry. I was angered frequently at the commercialization of what I considered a sacred and valuable belief system.
Not to mention that my boss was a raging homophobe, who actually made it on a local gay paper’s list of top ten threats to the gay community in our fair city.
My point then, and still is, that evangelical Christians aren’t all materialistic wackos who think that everything that has “Jesus” on it is somehow beneficial for humanity. In fact, the people who produce that stuff are similar to the money changers in the temple.
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
I was a firm believer that commerce and spirituality should be kept separate. It still makes my skin crawl when I see a TV preacher selling something he says people need to make it through their lives, or pass by a Christian trinket store and see the latest product rip-off (a-la Jesus in the style of the Pepsi logo on a t-shirt).
I’m not in any position to do it, but I would sure like to see someone put together “a scourge of small cords” and teach those capitalists a lesson.
But I made some exceptions.
Sage’s “Den of Thieves” was one of those exceptions. It was on a Tooth and Nail sampler, and it is the only song I have ever heard by this band.
But it seemed to capture, more so than any other song, the righteous anger I felt when I was faced with how Christianity was marketed.
In my most Evangelical days, I never ever thought it was great that there were so many Christian trinkets for sale about everything, and I certainly never bought into the idea that Testamints were a form of ministry.
I even worked at a Christian Bookstore for four years under someone who believed it was a ministry. I was angered frequently at the commercialization of what I considered a sacred and valuable belief system.
Not to mention that my boss was a raging homophobe, who actually made it on a local gay paper’s list of top ten threats to the gay community in our fair city.
My point then, and still is, that evangelical Christians aren’t all materialistic wackos who think that everything that has “Jesus” on it is somehow beneficial for humanity. In fact, the people who produce that stuff are similar to the money changers in the temple.
“And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
I was a firm believer that commerce and spirituality should be kept separate. It still makes my skin crawl when I see a TV preacher selling something he says people need to make it through their lives, or pass by a Christian trinket store and see the latest product rip-off (a-la Jesus in the style of the Pepsi logo on a t-shirt).
I’m not in any position to do it, but I would sure like to see someone put together “a scourge of small cords” and teach those capitalists a lesson.
posted by deadwriter at 10:48 p.m.
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